Lightning Flashing Across the Sky
by EllieMurasaki
Summary: Michael's standing orders are the same as Dean's, to save his younger brother or to kill him; when desperate enough to save Dean, there's nothing Sam won't do. Spoilers through 5x04 "The End".


It was a ghost that did them in in the end; a fucking _ghost _of all things, a woman who took one look at Dean and saw the man who'd murdered her, and Sam was too busy with the man's ghost until it was a heartbeat too late. His power hummed through his veins the way it had with Ruby, both ghosts evaporated in a rush of flame, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered when Dean's lungs were torn open, bleeding on the ground.

Sam knelt at Dean's side, cradled him in his arms, remembering New Harmony and Fort Lauderdale—human bodies are so fragile. The knife in his ankle sheath knocked against his leg, and it would be so easy to splash his own blood over Dean's, more reasons to die than live ever since Ilchester, nothing to keep him here any longer with his brother gone—the angels didn't need Dean, only his body, easily repaired—but there were other angels—

One trick a college student learns is how to sleep in any moment available; the hunter who doesn't have that knack is either a weekender or a lost cause. Sam closed his eyes and there, just like last night and the night before and every night for months.

"I am sorry for your loss," Lucifer said, and the hell of it was he was probably telling the truth.

"Bring him back," Sam said flatly. "Bring him back to me, give me five minutes just him and me, and keep him safe, and I'm yours."

"It will hurt him," Lucifer pointed out. "To see me with your face."

"He's not exactly here to raise objections," Sam snapped back, then realized the devil was playing devil's advocate and broke down in hysterical laughter. Lucifer came closer, put a hand on Sam's shoulder, and Sam flinched back from the warmth of it before forcing himself to breathe, to calm. Lucifer would be inside his _skin_, after all.

"Where are you?" Lucifer asked.

Sam blinked. The ghosts had led them on a good chase. "I'm not sure. North Carolina. Charlotte."

Lucifer nodded. "Stay there. I'm coming." And just like that, Sam was awake, his heart still and silent in his brother's cooling corpse and Dean's heart pounding hell's bells (Satan's coming to you) behind Sam's ribs.

Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil—

"Close your eyes," Lucifer whispered.

"Bring him _back_," Sam snarled.

"When you and I are settled," Lucifer answered. "I swear on my father's name."

Sam took a deep breath, nodded, buried his face in Dean's hair for a moment—a moment longer—and straightened. "Do it."

Even with eyes closed, the light flaring out of Nick was blinding; a thud—Nick, dead—and a searing pain—his nerves, his veins scorching—his body motionless as marble, burning, cracking—

_Like this,_ Lucifer whispered, and the power settled, calmed. _I think you'd like to restore him yourself?_

_I'd like that,_ Sam answered, and his body was his own again.

Sam opened his eyes.

Dean was lying before him, still and staring, and Dean was standing before him, horrified, with Tessa's familiar face over to the side. "Trust me for five minutes," Sam said, "jerk," and how long had it been since he could say that without choking on the fear that Dean wouldn't answer back?, and caught Dean's soul by the shoulder with one hand and pressed down on Dean's body's shoulder with the other and everything clicked together with the ease of experience—Lucifer's experience, and that should scare him, but the angelic grace sang symphonies and Sam was instrument and conductor, and Dean opened his eyes, green as life, and Sam grinned at him—one heartbeat when everything was _right_—and his knife leapt from its sheath and blazed with grace and tore through Sam's throat

_take me away_ Sam told Tessa _as far from angels and demons as you can take me_

no no no sammy don't do this don't leave me

_you left me first_

(you walk through that door don't you ever come back)

_never knew me never will_

stay with me baby brother just stay with me

_love him hate him kill him save him_

open your eyes baby brother. Open your _eyes_.

The first thing he saw were the eyes he'd last seen a few moments ago wide in shock—last seen eons ago when the last key was turning in the last lock—

"Brother," he rasped, sitting up slowly.

"Bitch," his brother said, answering one part of him, and "Last time I saw you," directed at another. "Had a hell of a fight."

The words echoed in his memory and didn't even begin to approach the truth. "Yeah, we did." Too much pride to call his brother 'yes, sir'.

"It's good to see you again," his brother continued. "It's been a long time."

"Too long." Ain't that the truth. "You shouldn't be here."

"Why?" Honest puzzlement on his brother's face.

"You'll have to follow Father's order sooner or later. I don't want to have to kill you when you try."

A cuff to the back of his head. "I don't take orders. Not from Father, not from anyone. Though God knows Zachariah's tried," and he has to laugh at that because if little brother Zachariah seriously thinks he can order around their big brother, then little brother Zachariah deserves the smackdown that's coming. "Besides," his brother added, "his last order was to save you. In Sioux Falls."

With that, he knew his brother must be as disoriented as he. The thought was frightening. "There's no saving me."

On earth as it is in heaven.

"Dean Winchester is an incurable optimist," his brother said, and something in himself snapped home: both his brothers are the same.

"There's no forgiving me," and now he was just trying to injure his brother badly enough to provoke a return strike. No point delaying the inevitable.

"Forgiven." The word had the weight of their Father's.

"There's another planet," his brother said. "Gonna be as pretty as this one in a few eons. Let's go there, you and me. Leave this place to the ones meant for it."

"I like this place."

"Father's been there. Recently."

He nodded and stood. Leave this planet for the monkeys to squabble over; that should satisfy all parties concerned. There was another jewel out there with his father's signature, for him and his brother to guard and treasure: the two of them as a unit, the way they had always been meant to be.

This time they'd do it right.


End file.
